Google Vault now covers Hangouts for work chat

Posted by Deborah Hsieh, Product Manager, Google for Work

As an IT admin you want your organization to be free to focus on getting stuff done. But part of your role is also to make sure you stay on top of legal compliance. Today we’re making it a little bit easier to do both with two new Hangouts features.

Over the next few days, we’ll roll out an admin option that lets you manage Hangouts chat history in your organization, so that you can make certain that it’s either on or off. People in your organization can have the freedom to chat with whomever they want — whether that person is part of your organization or not — and you can be sure that new employee conversations stay personal and private, because they’ll disappear shortly after taking place.

We’re also adding Google Apps Vault support for Hangouts chat. With Vault support for chat, organizations of all sizes can quickly find and preserve chat messages. This is a great way to safeguard business-critical information for continuity, compliance and regulatory purposes.

Find out how to tailor Hangouts to best suit your organizations compliance needs.

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Allstate helps people uncover risks to their homes using Google Maps

Posted by Elizabeth Schreier, Director of Digital and Social Engagement at Allstate Insurance

Editors note: This month Google Maps turns ten! Since launching ten years ago, use cases for maps have come a long way. To celebrate a decade of mapping, we’re highlighting new and innovative ways developers are deploying maps. Read how guest blogger, Elizabeth Schreier, Director of Digital and Social Engagement at Allstate Insurance, is relying on Google Maps APIs to bring unique mapping experiences to their users.

Imagine looking at a map of your house and seeing a visual diagnosis of the biggest risks in your area — whether the risk is fire, theft or even freezing pipes. Then imagine getting helpful tips that could help you protect your home against those risks. That’s what we’ve done with GoodHome, a project we created at Allstate with our agency, T3.

We built GoodHome to make a tool that anyone would find useful, whether or not they were an insurance customer or even a homeowner. We realized we could use our proprietary information about insurance claims to help people identify the most common and costly claims in their respective ZIP codes. We decided to visualize this information, along with relevant property statistics, on an interactive map that included tips to help people mitigate potential risks.

We built GoodHome using the Google Maps APIs because of its familiarity, ease of use and comprehensive features. The development team at T3 created the GoodHome prototype using three Google Maps APIs: Static Maps, JavaScript and Street View Image APIs. They customized the maps by drawing layers, integrating a weather API and using CSS to create animations that brought the experience to life. The development process went smoothly and took just three months from concept to completion.

GoodHome is more than informative, it’s compelling. A visitor who uses the GoodHome tool is over 350% more likely to request an insurance quote than one who doesn’t. Forty percent of people type more than one address into the map, and on average, visitors stay on the site for six to seven minutes.

GoodHome also helps our agents build better relationships with customers. When an Allstate customer receives a link to the GoodHome website from their agent, the map automatically opens up to the customer’s home address. The personalized interaction helps agents connect with their clients and provide a great consulting tool that opens the door for a conversation. We plan to introduce GoodHome to all 10,000 Allstate agents across the country so they can spread the tool to their customers.

We’re excited to play a role in enhancing the home insurance experience for consumers. The power of Google Maps has helped us make a product that we hope will help people see their homes in a new way and think differently about what it means to protect what matters to them.

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Hilton helps guests book the perfect room with Google Maps APIs

Posted by Virginia Suliman, Vice President of Digital Design and Development, Hilton Worldwide

(Cross-posted on the Google Geo Developers Blog.)

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Virginia Suliman, Vice President of Digital Design and Development, Hilton Worldwide. Read how Hilton is experimenting with Google APIs to take the guess work out of the hotel booking and room selection process. Hilton is just one of many customers sharing their story as part of our cross-country road trip, Code the Road.

No one likes surprises when they reserve hotel rooms, so it’s crucial for Hilton that people see exactly what they’ll be getting before they arrive. Currently, Hilton’s HHonors guests can use the HHonors website and app as a one-stop tool to control their on-property experience – from finding the best hotels in the right neighborhoods and booking the most suitable one, to soon, using the app as a room key.

With a spirit of constant innovation, we’re always looking for new ways to enhance the guest experience. One way we’re doing so is by experimenting with the Google Maps APIs through proof of concept iPhone app functionality we built to enhance the room selection process during digital check-in. The concept tests a the Street View panoramas, part of the Google Maps SDK for iOS, letting users see on the app the exact view they’ll experience when they get to their hotel room. For example, they could virtually look out their window on the app and select the room that overlooks a park or a quiet street corner.

People care not just about the hotel they stay in, but also about the neighborhood, including what kinds of food, entertainment and amenities are nearby. So in our concept, we also tested a controlled list of businesses and points of interest from the Google Maps Places API for IOS to highlight nearby destinations via the HHonors app, like Lincoln Center in New York City, a great fish restaurant in Boston, or the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.

The full potential of Google APIs sets in when you combine them. If successful, the Maps and Street View panorama concepts could one day fully integrate into our HHonors app or global web portal, which already uses Google Maps Business View to offer panoramic virtual tours of our properties to guests.

We believe that happy travelers are repeat customers who become loyalists. If you feel connected to the experience you’ve had with us, you’re more likely to return and to tell others about it. Through technology, we’re hoping to make it easier for people to find the perfect room, have an unforgettable stay and come back for another adventure.

We were delighted to participate in the Code the Road trip. We hosted the Code the Road bus at our Hilton Chicago property on June 10 and at Hilton Headquarters in McLean, Virginia on June 22. You can also see the Hilton HHonors app window-view proof of concept demo on the bus.

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